As a leading Regionalist painter during the 1930s and 1940s (along with Thomas Hart Benton and John Steuart Curry), Wood celebrated traditional American values through his depictions of the American landscape, history, and country life. His painting style – influenced by his study of German Neue Sachlickeit (New Objectivity) and Flemish portraits – was deliberately naive and folksy, in contrast to the prevailing trends toward modernism and abstraction. This bird’s-eye view shows a New England town on the historic night of April 18, 1775 – the start of the Revolutionary War. Paul Revere on his horse (lower left) can be seen riding out to warn the colonists of the coming of the British.